Pinky rat down sideways

[Danielle-S]

Hi, novice herpetologist here. This is Bruce,(and one very excited son!) he's one year old (the snake, not the son) Tonight when we fed him, he took his meal from the side, curled around it, folded it in half and downed the whole thing. I got some advice from the chat room, but just want to know if this looks normal.Have only seen him eat normally, from the pinkys head. He's curled up sleeping now, and seems ok, but just want to know if there are any signs that would indicate a problem. Thanks in advance.

 

[cris]

Thats perfectly normal when you feed them very small food items, if it goes down easily they often dont bother trying to get it head first. It should be able to eat fuzzy rats by the look of it.

 

[pythonmania]

Nice bump there in his body, just couldn't get it down fast enoughm maybe he thought you had another to give him.:lol:

 

[Vassallo2008]

hahaha My Diamond used to always do that.. was kindof annoying.

 

[Danni]

my MD is doing that at the moment because his feeds are too small, not much i can do tho as he had to have surgery which meant down sizing his mouse size so i want stretching scar tissue/wound

 

[Danielle-S]

Thanks heaps for your advice. As a newby, I dont really have any idea of what is normal, and there's only so many times I can ring the guy I bought him from to answer my silly questions. Heres a few more....
*is there any particular time of day that is best for feeding?
* is it ok to handle him after a feed? (havent as of yet)
*how will I know when hes ready for the next size food?
*his eyes went all smoky the other day, and I thought he might be ready to moult, but now they're normal. Any ideas?

 

[LauraM]

mm my stimson did that yesterday he was puling it so hard fromm side i thought it was going to fold in half and go down his throat.. instead he slowly manouved his mouth to the tail and started again there lol.

 

[polpii]

*is there any particular time of day that is best for feeding? night time, say 8pm-10pm is easily done as they are active at this time.
* is it ok to handle him after a feed? (havent as of yet) 2 days after a feed as it is stressed when it has food in its tummy. Excessive stress will cause it to regurgitate.
*how will I know when hes ready for the next size food? you feed it a size where after it eats it normally that there will be a nice little size bump
*his eyes went all smoky the other day, and I thought he might be ready to moult, but now they're normal. Any ideas? shedding process is like that, eyes get cloudy then one day later their shedding liquid forms between the skin and the eyes become like normal, then 2-3 days later they shed their skin usually at night

 

[Danielle-S]

Cool, thanks heaps. Seems we're doing everything right so far. What a valuble source of information this site is. Will definitely be asking heaps of more boring questions from here on in.

 

[Danielle-S]

You were so right, he had his shed tonight, like minutes ago. So cool to watch.

 

[FROGGIESrCUTEo_O]

Nice little Bredli you have there

 

[cris]

Thanks heaps for your advice. As a newby, I dont really have any idea of what is normal, and there's only so many times I can ring the guy I bought him from to answer my silly questions. Heres a few more....
*is there any particular time of day that is best for feeding? Night time, but it doesnt really matter and most will eat at any time.
* is it ok to handle him after a feed? (havent as of yet) Its ok to carefully move them if required, but avoid playing with the snake like its a toy. Its more of an issue with large food times, imagine how you would feel if you ate 10kg of food and somone picked you up and started moving you around forcefully.
*how will I know when hes ready for the next size food? There isnt any harm in feeding small items, but IMO its more practical to feed one item that is enough for a meal, something 20-25% of the pythons weight is fine.
*his eyes went all smoky the other day, and I thought he might be ready to moult, but now they're normal. Any ideas? It will shed very soon, they lose the smokey look before ethey shed.

...

 

[ShAdY12]

Hi, novice herpetologist here. This is Bruce,(and one very excited son!) he's one year old (the snake, not the son) Tonight when we fed him, he took his meal from the side, curled around it, folded it in half and downed the whole thing. I got some advice from the chat room, but just want to know if this looks normal.Have only seen him eat normally, from the pinkys head. He's curled up sleeping now, and seems ok, but just want to know if there are any signs that would indicate a problem. Thanks in advance.

Good to hear hes doin well. Mine did the same thing when i first got it. I sat up half the night whatching him all paranoid LOL but he was fine and i stress too much... but i guess thats better than not being stressed enough

 

[Jewly]

With that size snake, he would easily be able to eat a weaner rat. I have 4 snakes around the 12 month age and they easily take one. Up until a few weeks back, I was feeding too small a rat and each time I fed, I tried the next size up and they take it easily. Now that they are on bigger rats, I will only feed them every 10 days instead of every 7.